James Cracknell begins the Marathon des Sables

James Cracknell is running the Marathon des Sables, dubbed ‘the toughest
footrace on earth', covering approximately 150 miles of the Sahara Desert in
Morocco over six days to raise money for Mencap. He is recording his
progress in a daily video blog.

"It's all about the long day" - that was the last piece of advice I was given before stage one of the Marathon des Sables.

The long day is stage four. So the aim today was to take steady, leaving something in the tank for the double marathon over the finest sand dunes Morocco has to offer.

Obviously those plans went out the window on the start after two days packing and repacking my backpack and now with helicopters buzzing over head it turned into a 30km race not stage one of six.

Hence at the first checkpoint I was just outside the top 10. I was feeling pretty good but the first batch of dunes were ahead. Five minutes later my speed had dropped 25 per cent and my heart rate risen by the same amount.

Not great for motivation but in these long races there is always someone worse off and today that was Julio from Spain who cramped up 100 metres from the finish line hence my appearance for at least one day in the top 10.